


Out of the Blue

by dammitspawk



Series: Out of the Blue AU [1]
Category: Stargate - All Media Types, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: AU, Angst, Multi, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 16:36:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18077045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dammitspawk/pseuds/dammitspawk
Summary: A while after Rodney moves back to Earth with Jennifer, he comes to some realizations about where he is and where he'd rather be. As well as who he'd rather be with.





	Out of the Blue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story I wrote in 2014 (!!!) that was supposed to be a chapter in a much larger story. It's been so many years now that I don't think I'll ever finish that story but I remembered I wrote this and thought I might as well post it. 
> 
> This is part of an AU I created where after the events of the canon Rodney decides to move back to Earth with Jennifer. Honestly it's more complicated than that but that's all you need to know for this fic. 
> 
> This piece was inspired by the Beach House song Troublemaker and the entire story is told through a playlist I made for this AU on 8-Tracks. I highly recommend giving it a listen.
> 
> This part takes place smack dab in the middle of the playlist.
> 
> https://8tracks.com/dammitspawk/out-of-the-blue

Tonight Rodney needed to take a walk. He couldn’t explain why, but he needed his feet to carry him away from his house, _their home_ , onto the road, past the park, and to the edge of the field that was filled with green wheat on the dew covered grass hill.

Jennifer had been looking at him with worried glances all night, in the kitchen, at the dinner table, on the couch. She might have been surprised but she didn’t utter a protest when he said,

“I’m going out. For a walk. I won’t be too long but umm… don’t wait up for me,” and grabbed his spring jacket before leaving, pulling the door behind him. It was already late. The sun had gone down completely and Rodney had wished he’d brought along a flashlight before his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Even then he didn’t stray from his path, which was only slightly visible in the starlight. It was exceptionally dark, there was only a sliver of moon out to help guide his way.

The whole time he walked he tried to figure out the cause for the knot between his shoulders and the heaviness in his chest. It had been a few months since he had gone permanently Earthside with Jennifer. When they had first arrived he thought it was just the stress of moving back into an ordinary life. Well, as ordinary as could be for Rodney while he still worked at the SGC. But the house, daily commute, grocery shopping, _domestics_ all made it foreign for the man who had spent the last 6 years (well minus the three months they were stuck on Earth after the wraith attack on their native planet) living in another galaxy on a supposed lost city fighting evil life sucking aliens and careening around other planets looking for incredibly advanced power sources. But still he and Jennifer had settled nicely and had gotten into the groove of Earth life again, together. And yet, the heavy feeling never left Rodney. It wasn’t work, I mean sure it could be immensely stressful at times, when the fate of the world hung in the balance, but that was what he was used to. Being honest, he couldn’t live doing anything more mundane. And it wasn’t like he wasn’t doing the same thing in Pegasus, even more so there, and yet he never had this feeling while living on Atlantis.

It was a sort of melancholy. A perpetual sadness that would just find him sometimes. Most times he ignored it, he could forget about it entirely when he was working on something really important. But sometimes at random points in the day it would come to him and he would feel weary and tired with the rediscovery of it. A lot of times he would feel it at the end of the day, walking through his front door to have the knot between shoulder blades tighten and his lungs fill with heavy bricks nearly making it impossible to breath. Seeing Jennifer would lighten the burden mostly but it still nagged. Today it had been too intense, too _obvious_ to ignore.

As he reached the hill overlooking the wheat field he still hadn’t come up with an answer. With an exhausted sigh he turned his face to the sky. There was something about living so far from the city, the light pollution was minimal. With that and the barely existent moon the stars shone brightly, and in immeasurable numbers. Even the Milky Way was smattered lightly across the sky. The stars were achingly familiar and totally wrong at the same time. Stars he knew so well but were so horribly, blatantly, amazingly _wrong_ to him. He worked on picking out the constellations, not as easy as it usually was with the increased number of glowing dots in the sky but soon enough he had picked out a few. The big dipper, Cassiopeia, Pegasus.

Pegasus.

He focused on the flying horse that was really just a rectangle and some sticks made out of tiny lights and re-memorized its shape in the sky. In another moment he had pinpointed the place where the galaxy he had lived for so many years in resided in the constellation. He thought of the people busy in Atlantis as he stared at the spot. Woolsey writing paperwork sitting snugly in his office, Zelenka who was now left on his own to yell at the techs but didn’t do so nearly as much as Rodney had, Ronon eating all the pudding cups Rodney had left behind, Teyla walking around carrying Torren and trying to will him to sleep (now that he thought of it, Torren would be walking around by himself, but with Teyla no doubt close behind him) without the risk of getting run over by a remote control car, and John.

John.

John who wouldn’t be playing chess with him, who wouldn’t be racing remote control cars down the long dark corridors of the city in the middle of the night with him, who wouldn’t be coming down to his lab to bring him a much needed cup of coffee, who wouldn’t be sitting on the pier drinking beer with him and telling him that Star Wars was, is, and always will be better than Doctor Who. John, his best friend who he left behind on the city a galaxy away. John who he had only really talked with once in the entire three months since he had left. John who he thought about every day.

The knot in his back tightened so suddenly and strongly that Rodney lost his breath. It was an almost physical, tangible pain that washed over him before the lightness left his head and he caught his breath, pulse racing through his veins and pumping in his ears.

He looked back up at the sky, to the point where a dot of light sat in a constellation that was obscure with the swath of a galaxy behind it that was just _wrong._ The wrong colour, the wrong distance, the wrong size, _the wrong galaxy._ He looked and he wondered if the man he missed so much the man he- _the man he loved_ looked up at his sky (the right sky) and found the galaxy that he lived in and ever thought of him with the feeling of a hundred bricks falling down to suffocate him in their broken rubble washing over him like a kamikaze wave strong enough to knock him to his knees. He sincerely doubted it.

The realization really came at him out of the blue.

All this time he was trying to make it work with Jennifer. He loved her, he really did. He was ready to marry her, if he wasn’t he would have never moved back. But there was someone he loved more. There always had been but Rodney had never seen it. Even before Jennifer Keller, even before Katie Brown. His heterosexuality had made him blind, his goals of finding a wife had stood in the way but it was always sitting right there, right in front of him. It was like his brain was fighting to keep the secret from himself for years.

He loved John. Not just in the way a friend loves another friend either.

He was _in love_ with John. His best friend. Who was in another galaxy.

An involuntary surprised “Ha” came out of his throat without him even realizing. Suddenly a lot of things made sense to him, most of all the lonely melancholy that had befallen him since he left Pegasus. He caught his breathe and found his feet. How long had he been out here? And hour? No, it was probably closer to two. Jennifer would be worrying by now, it’s not like he just up and disappeared for two hours often.

With one last look up at the Milky Way, Rodney turned on still-wobbly legs and started to head for home. Home, and Jennifer. What was he going to say to her now? He had made a home with her, he cared for her more than he had for another person in a long time, he couldn’t just leave her because he finally realized something that had been going on for years even before he’d met her.

Could he? 

No, that wouldn’t be fair. Not to her, she loved him. But now Rodney thought, as he passed the park, leaving the green wheat far behind him, of going home and seeing her like he did everyday, eating with her, sitting with her on the couch, going to sleep beside her. He panicked at the thought of the things that had previously made him happy. There was no way he could do that now, not when every second he was thinking of John and how different everything would be if he stayed on Atlantis, if he had this relationship with him instead.

When he finally reached his short driveway where his small, manageable house sat with their two boring but practical cars sitting in front of it and saw the porch lights left on by Jennifer he knew what he had to do. He had worked hard to put this life together, _they_ had worked hard and deserved it. He deserved to be happy with his perfect smart, blonde and completely loveable girlfriend.

He opened the door (left unlocked for him by Jennifer) to see the house dark. All the lights had been turned off save for a lamp in the living room. He closed the door behind him and turned the bolt before taking off his jacket and shoes and heading towards the warm light. Jennifer sat on the near end of the couch, a paperback in her hand.

“Hey,” she said looking up from her book.

“Hey,” he returned.

“Everything okay now?” she asked, looking at him intently and still a bit worried. Rodney sucked in a breath and nodded.

“Yes, I feel much better actually,” he lied. He really wasn’t sure if it was better or worse now. “Didn’t I tell you not to wait up?”

Jennifer just shrugged and closed her book, lifting herself up from the couch.

“Are you ready for bed?” A small twinge of panic rose in Rodney’s stomach but he pushed it down.

“Yes that sounds wonderful.” Jennifer smiled at him.

“Great, me too.” And with that she switched off the lamp, leaving them in darkness. Without another thought Rodney followed her up to their room.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> I do have some other chapters of this story partly written. If I ever finish them they will be posted as a part of the Out of the Blue AU series.
> 
> (Also if you gave the 8tracks playlist a listen there is another one pertaining to this AU that solely focuses on the time Rodney and John spend in separate galaxies.)
> 
> Other content relating to this AU can be found here:
> 
> http://dammitspawk.tumblr.com/tagged/out%20of%20the%20blue%20au
> 
> PS: the art is mine :)


End file.
